Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

-TELEGRAPH" 15 DEC:1963 Sydney, N.S.V SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, DECEMBER 15, 1963 73 The Week in Art by tbaniel Thomas IMAGINATIVE SHOWING OFmany mixedha eghthibe itionst dealers find appropriate for Christmas, that at the Hungry Horse is the one which should not be missed. There are 12 works by 12 Artists, and the exhibi- tion catalogue is a calen- dar, with a large and gia- morons color reproduction of each exhibited work to accompany each month. Available at 12 6 !rani Ithe Hungry Horse, 17 Windsor Street, Piulding- ton, this calendar is so ne- thing that everybody in- terested in Australian art should have; for good mea- sure Its cover is a group photograph py ofw at thcherse artistson as 12hap a cast-iron balcony. This imaginative calen- dar-catalogue, and the flattering display of only one work on each wall must make the artists very pleased to be in the exhi- bition, The 12 are established painters like Plate, Mess- ing, Rose, Rapotec, Olsen and Hodgkinson all at their familiar best, the Olsen an early Drysdale soldier "Portrait Landscape" a seated at Albury Station. special delight, striped a Coburn, waving its red and gold two O'Briens and an ex - traces of a journey through cellent Friend. Downstairs a green land; the Hodgkin- ceramic reliefs by Amabel son rather better than his Ceprynska, sticky, boiled - familiar nature -piece a. lollies Byzantinism In tur- with its large clear caba- quoise, amethyst and aPrl- Banc sign marked in the cot. Rather pretty. sand; The Messing "Catch- ing the Big Wave" is a tine high-spirited flourish, and unlike most of t h e paintings in his recent show, appears to be finish- ed. Coburn's new venture into large flat cut-out shapes, though beautiful- ly painted seems not to have found the right place- ment for the shapes. Then there are two art - tats newly arrived in Syd- ney this year both with American experience; Red- , dington, a painter whose I new "Dream of Shoshan' dition of raw red mean- shows a startling fleshy ad- ]tam Dobell. Clowns and ness to his familiar expres- harlequins and flowers and other romantic props. all right for those who like them. I hate them. At the Dominion two awful but funny David Boyds; a large poetic blue and green Blackman oil on paper "Moonlit Landscape" -an excellent 1938 street scene by Sall Herman; and a Fairweather. sionist-cubist abstractions. Few painters handle the paint itself so sensuously as he-creamy, luminous. tender. Klippel, the sculp- tor, has one of the best Junk pieces from his one- man show, a standing re- lief as usual both emit- ting and internally gener- ating aesthetic electricity. Finally, there are the three young painters, Emanuel Raft, with the ghostly collage and the knobbly personages of the great leap forward since his recent one-man show; Robert Hughes never bet- ter than in his landscape here; and Conn Lancelcy wit h "Altar". where sac forms, a bit like coarsened gorky leap about the red which surrounds an an- tique gambling machine, the Centaur, whose tarn- ished brass remains intact and wholly innocent of paint. More mixtures At. Barry Stern's see an early Pa.ssmore "Bathers." At the Macquarie a splendid new Fahweather, "Closing Time," a row of heads too sad to be in a pub, perhaps the factory day is finished, two little 1049 Nolans on glass, David Strachan, Kenneth Hood, an early Olsen watercolor "Suburbia" perhaps 1955- 56; Cezannish, not very in- teresting. In the inner room are 20 small oils by Yvonne Francart, a spirit returned from Sydney's Original prints At Terry Clune's is a small Christmas show by the Sydney Printmakers. Original prints or draw- ings are the only safe and sensible things to buy If you like your pictures small and cheap. Hocken and Salkauskas, as usual, provide high points, but it is especially interesting to find the newer exhibitors establishing their person- alities so well, especially Eve Keky and Joyce Allen, both jpottic, both Euro- pean In approach. Jean Appleton, Tom Green and Guy Warren are now pro- ducing lovely floating seri- graphs; and Will Rose Mike Brown's "Heavenly Singer" has moved very promising- ly into lithography. Statues At David Jones Fine Artil Department are 50 figure:I in white marble or browil soapstone by Lenke Folder, a Hun garian sculptor. Sizes llin. to 231n., prices seven to 700 guinea ., dates 1923 to 1960. 'the style is 1920'a neo-classicism, and when the figure. as nearly always bends its neck, hunches its shoulders to fit inside, and to echo the rectangular cube of stone from which it was carved, then the work is pleasant enough, though very repetitive. Once or twice she Ig- nores the block, and when the figures are no longer compressed, but begin to undulate, they are extra- ordinarily commonplace. Minor artists depart with peril from the style im- posed by their period. Aboriginal art At Chatterton's, the Bennett - C a m p b ell Trust's newest collection of aboriginal bark paintings, carved figures, totems, spears, and dilly -bags from Arnhem Lane contains some extremely interest- ing old barks - perhaps 20 or 30 years old, before ex- tensive collecting began. Some examples of near- Oenpelli style are there, very rare these days; and some unfamiliar work from Bathurst Island. As usual, low prices four to 159 guineas, with most of them around 20 guineas. Mike Brown Last wee this notice oftow-short exhibition (too short that is to be reviewed before it closes) predicted that it would be new and inter- esting, which it is, and rude, which it la not. Only Mary Lou now metamor- phosed into Miss Uni- verse, Is rude with nude cut-out from the sexy megazines, on iiiiii iiiii iiiiiii ...wHATIN ON 4.41 iiiiiii 1.1114111 iiiii TODAY AND NEAT WICK AN Gamey al N -5e, paledarinpa N.. end yea a,fpl, prn,.. e, td. cna rconwweewIll A.,strAt.an r nt ng, ALL MIXT ales Terry Clow.-5,dow erA,Aahan, Rutty Iltwort -44.rett 5Aogr Dirattir000 -IA.srd Show. GAarguarle -Ward I.,r and YritnAr i,antert 010.n. ^Os Barry Mem -1Aerl show nd. AsaIal Clp,n1A0 fran, ft. Haag., .....,-TritIrg *Pk. 1.44 p, Davtd Jntr CNN Ares Cleparlawal.-Lenhe Poldw. wo.plwe. Dwfd Wows Art Gallery .-I0 od.owa and under. Chau..., -.Aber glnat Art Ircni IN. IllenneltCampbell Trutt. walk Gallery, Hotritity -Col n Poreer, Douglas Nam Newt Vwe serleu.k. NeArAtttr -.Ogg Loran Delnl Lowers, plop Areleven. Artorwee.-smell p*.ro.ody Nepal An Soolety. 75 W44. Srert North SIttierlt thew, Ile owl 1.5.Alow vete MO Neer oe,lary own, wows 11 N, 1.10.9 Weanesday N Aosta Soak Dane.-UM. WI. If. draw, -t, GI e'd SrnrY 'Others/Ise there are two 1010WelleamilloinullowIlmc open work constructions, "Christmas Present" and "Christmas Tree," made of pots and pans and all sorts of things, for the wall. These are the most recent. But most of the pictures are all paint and no as- semblage. Two or three are deliberately nasty, gaudy as the cheap ad- vertisements whose poor mass produced c o 1 Ox they imitate, II